I have been Beijing bureau chief for Forbes since 2007, writing about rigged markets, corrupt journalists, brave lawyers, coal mine bosses, the Google kerfuffle, Internet companies that make ungodly sums of money, Internet companies that lose ungodly sums of money, and awful books on doing business in China. I have impersonated, among others, a Chinese propagandist, a traveling White House reporter and a China expert. I seek to inform and mock others on Twitter [@gadyepstein], in print and anywhere that provides a working microphone and a gullible audience. Previously, I was the last Beijing correspondent for the once-proud Baltimore Sun, where I also covered 9/11, the 2004 Asian tsunami and the intrigues of North Korea. For a series on globalization in 2006, I won a Gerald Loeb Award for business journalism. In 2006-7, I studied for my as-yet-undiscovered career in screenwriting on the Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. I grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., and graduated in 1994 from Harvard.

This story appears in the October 10 edition of Forbes Asia Magazine. Investor Gabriel Schulze--tall, blue-eyed, American--walked into the conference room at the Yanggakdo International Hotel for his business meeting with the North Koreans. A towering edifice separated from the rest of Pyongyang by a ring of water, the Yanggakdo has [...]